Device communication (wired and wireless), especially between portable, handheld medical diagnostic devices and a host system of a health care provider, is an important part of a health care regime. Providing wireless connectivity between the portable handheld medical diagnostic device, such as a personal blood glucose meter, and a host system can take many forms. For example, the following types of wireless connectivity, which have been employed by such portable handheld diagnostic medical diagnostic devices, include Bluetooth (Ultra low power), ZigBee, Certified Wireless USB, Near Field Communication (NFC), Active RFID, Wi-Fi, and IrDA. Typically, due to legal, engineering and cost factors, such medical diagnostic devices are only manufactured with a single type of wireless connectivity.
However, as the methods of wireless communications continue to evolve, the solution to providing medical diagnostic devices with additional features and/or a new type of wireless connectivity often takes two forms, either an add-on solution or an integrated solution. For the integrated solution, the integration of a new connectivity means into an existing portable handheld medical diagnostic device requires redesign and redevelopment of a new model of the medical diagnostic device. Such redesigns and redevelopments require significant costs and a long development and approval process.
For the add-on solution, an adapter module is developed containing the additional feature or the new wireless connectivity means which normally attaches to an external surface of the existing medical diagnostic device. The advantage of this solution is that the add-on module provides minimal impact to the operation and configuration of the medical diagnostic device. However, typical add-on solutions require user interaction to initiate either the additional feature or the wireless connectivity by pressing buttons on both devices, as is the case for conventional blood glucose meters. In addition, in the case of portable handheld blood glucose meters, there is currently no automatic method for muting a transmitter during a patient measurement, which can cause measurement errors in some such meters. Furthermore, some such add-on adaptors cannot be electrically isolated during recharging thereby increasing the risk to device damage from a short. Finally, different versions of such add-on adapters are often needed in order to adapt with different medical diagnostic device configurations thereby adding to production costs.